“It was the Herr Oberst’s,” Kocian said. “He had that with him at Stalingrad. And before that, the Herr Oberst’s father, your great-grandfather, carried it in France.”
“Jesus!” Castillo said.
“It is now yours,
“How the hell did it survive the war?” Castillo asked.
By then, without thinking about it, he had stuck his finger in the action and was moving it so that light would be reflected off his fingernail and into the barrel for his inspection.
“It’s been used, but there’s no pitting.”
“I have taken care of it, Karlchen,” Muller said. “Herr Kocian told me it would one day come to you.”
“I envisioned somewhat different circumstances from these today,” Kocian said, and Castillo heard the sarcasm now was back in his voice.
Castillo looked at Muller and again asked, “How the hell did it survive the war?”
“When the Herr Oberst—after he was freed from the hospital—was given command of the Offizier POW Lager, he left it here. He told me the war was lost, and he didn’t want his father’s pistol to wind up in the hands of some Russian commissar.”
“Here in the attic?”
“No. Actually, he had me bury it in a machine-gun ammo box under the manure pile behind the stable. It was after the war that it—that all this material—was moved and placed up here.”
“Tell me about that,” Castillo said.
“Karl, we’re pressed for time,” Gorner said.
“Not that pressed,” Castillo said.
“I don’t know, Otto, if you’ve ever heard this story,” Kocian said.
“I have no idea what story you’re going to tell,” Gorner replied.
“Well, by the time the Herr Oberst and I got here,” Kocian went on, “this house was occupied by a company of American engineers. So we went to a farmer’s house—Muller’s father’s house—on the farm. The Herr Oberst then became ex-Gefreite Gossinger, as he didn’t want to be rearrested by the Americans as he would have been as an oberstleutnant. When I came back here from Vienna, he and Siggie’s father were plowing the field with the one horse that had miraculously escaped both the German Army and hungry people.
“Two weeks after that, the Russians arrived. The border between the Russian and American Zones was then marked off, our horse stolen, and we were evicted on thirty minutes’ notice from Muller’s father’s house.
“We came to the big house. The Herr Oberst planned to beg the American officer, a captain, for permission to live in the stable, and perhaps to work for food.
“As we walked across the field, a small convoy of Americans arrived at the big house. Two jeeps, an armored car, and a large, open Mercedes. On seeing this, we turned and tried to hide. No luck. We were spotted. A jeep with three MPs and a machine gun caught us before we’d made a hundred meters.
“We were then marched in front of the jeep up to the big house. As we got close to the Mercedes, we saw there was a senior officer in it. The Herr Oberst said, ‘One star, Billy, a brigadier.’
“Then this brigadier general stood up and motioned for our captors to bring us close.
“ ‘I am General Withers, the Military Governor of Hesse-Kassel,’ he said in perfect German. ‘I came here today in what my staff told me was going to be a vain search for an old and dear friend. Hermann, the same bastards told me they had proof you had been murdered by the Gestapo!’
“The Herr Oberst . . .” Kocian went on, but then his voice broke. “The Herr Oberst . . . The Herr Oberst came to attention and saluted. General Withers got out of the car and they embraced, both of them crying.”
“I had not heard that story,” Gorner said. “I knew that he knew the military governor, but . . .”
“The Herr Oberst was a proud man. He was ashamed that that friendship got him, got us, special treatment.”
“You mean,” Delchamps asked, “permission to start up the newspapers again? Charley told us about that.”
“That came later,” Kocian said. “That day, that very day, we were fed American rations—unbelievable fare; we had considered one boiled potato a hearty meal—and the engineer captain was told that his unit would be moved, and until it was, Herr Gossinger would look after the property. Staying in the apartment on the third floor.
“The Americans were gone a week later. A sign was erected stating the property had been requisitioned for use by the military governor. American rations mysteriously appeared on the verandah. American gasoline mysteriously appeared in the stable, in which captured German vehicles suitable for adaptation to agricultural purposes had also mysteriously appeared. Getting the picture?”
“What about the weapons?” Castillo asked.
“There had been several ack-ack—antiaircraft—batteries on the property,” Kocian explained. “We found some of the weapons, and all of the hand grenades in the magazine of one of them. And others turned up. The Herr Oberst believed—as did your General George S. Patton, by the way—that it would be only a matter of time before the Red Army came through the Fulda Gap. We had seen the raping of Berlin and elsewhere. The Herr Oberst decided many would prefer to die fighting than fall into the hands of the Reds. So we moved the weapons here. Fortunately, they weren’t needed. Until now.”
“What else is in the boxes, Billy?” Jack Davidson asked from behind Castillo.
Castillo looked at him in surprise; he hadn’t seen or heard him coming up the ladder. And then he saw something else that surprised him. Without making a conscious decision to do so, Castillo had been feeding the loose cartridges into his pistol’s magazine. One was already full, the other nearly so.
“A little bit of everything,” Kocian replied. “One of the boxes is full of hand grenades. Several kinds of
“You just said the magic words, Billy,” Davidson said. “MP-43 and .45.”
“Jack, you can’t go anywhere near the church—you can’t go anywhere—with a Schmeisser,” Castillo said.
“I can, Karlchen,” Muller said. “I am licensed to have a machine pistol.”
“Which means,” Davidson said, “we can have a couple of spares for Herr Muller on the floorboard of the car he’s in.”
“That’s if Siggie is willing to involve himself in this,” Castillo said.
“
“See if you can find a P-38 for me in there, Billy,” Delchamps said.
“And a couple of .45s for me and Sparkman,” Torine said. “And for Charley, too. Charley is a real .45 fan.”
“Not today, Jake,” Castillo said, in the process of slipping the Luger into the small of his back as he approached the ladder.
[FIVE]
“The Castle Walk”
Philipps University
Marburg an der Lahn
Hesse, Germany
1040 27 December 2005
The castle of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel—now the signature building of Philipps Universitat—had been built at the peak of a steep hill. What had probably been a path hacked out of the granite had been broadened over the years—most likely centuries—into a two-lane cobblestone road against the castle wall. Sometime later, an area perhaps two hundred meters long and thirty-five meters wide had been somehow added to the steep sides of the
